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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

$$$ - A short note on my own behalf

First of all I want to thank everyone who was willing to press the donate button in the meantime. As you can see I had added a "donate"-widget at the top of this site some time ago for everyone who finds my work helpful and who wants to support me. Any small amount will help me to continue the work on this blog.

Although I am not a big fan of advertisments many will probably also have noticed that there are some more ads in the blog-layout now. In future I will also add affiliate links to various amazon-stores which will be just a way to help me cover a fraction of the costs this blog is causing.

Just to let you know, I am not getting rich with this, I started this as fun project in my spare time and because of my passion for music and portable devices. Every amount of money I "earned" was put back into the blog by buying new speakers, new recording and measuring equipment and lately paying the programmer who is currently coding the new "interactive audio database":

To tell the truth I currently have more financial loss because of all this than benefit, not even mentioning the time which goes into this. Meanwhile I am even not quite sure if I will be ever able to finish everything as I liked, because there is still lots of time to be put inside to prepare all the recordings etc. My family is already protesting against this...

But with this tool I really hoped to be able to create something unique and helpful for everyone who is interested in portable speakers as much as I am and I think the new audio database could become a first important resource for everyone who wants to get a first impression of how this speaker compares against another one.
I put lots of thought into the setup to make the recordings as consistent as possible and the intention is to complement the database with new speakers continuously, although please understand that I cannot afford buying any new speaker just because someone asks me to do so. Neither do I expect any of the big boys like JBL, Bose, Sony etc. sending me speakers for free, but I welcome any loaner of anyone who would like to have their speakers recorded and added to the list. Please be patient a bit. I have already got some cool music from great musicians to be used for this tool, I am still waiting for a response from other artists if they would like to contribute. When the final playlist covering many different genres is finally finished, I can start with the recordings and then publish this tool online.

Thanks to everyone for your support and let's look ahead at even some more interesting gadgets in future!

8 comments:

I have found your reviews and youtube videos to be extremely helpful! I am looking to purchase a bluetooth speaker to take camping, so I'd like one that sounds good in the woods. Have you heard about the new Braven speaker? BRV-HD?

The Braven HD doesn't seem to be available in Europe yet, there is only the older model 855s. I am not sure if there is much difference between both soundwise. I haven't heard the 855s either, thus cannot talk much about the sonic qualities, but many seem to be pretty impressed with it.

This is a great idea, but it may be even more useful if we could compare graphic response frequency charts. You already compare them in some of your post entries, but doing a dynamic on, where users could actually select speakers, would be great and would give us objective figures to make a decision.

Dear Oluv, great blog and great reviews (the major brands should read your reviews to improve some of the crap they out/sell). Especially the frequency response at different volumes are a must...extremely useful ! I am glad I stumbled into your YouTube channel a month or so ago since that and the blog are really a joy to read and listen. Time for a short question if I may : have you tried the Harman and Kardon Omni 10 or 20 ? I tried at a store the 20 model and it had some punchy bass all the way up in volume...but I could only try till 70% of my iPhone tunes (vocals, bass, strings...I tried a bit of everything) until I got asked to stop (-: I was using Bluetooth but it does also have wireless (no airplay though). RegardsRui

Thanks Rui, yes I heard both but only in a store as well. I liked both, although it seemed that the Omni 10 sounded more natural, the Omni 20 had deeper bass but was also quite a bit more colored too sounded for my taste. I also tried cranking them but unlike you I noticed some cracking when I played bass heavy tracks at maximum volume, it was also quite impressive to see the passive radiator vibrate at the back as it seems to be suspended very loose, the excursion is extreme.I would like to hear them at home once, but I am not sure they would substitute my Sonos. The Omini 10 might even sound better than the Play:1 but from what I read Harman's software is still very buggy and not even comparable to Sonos.I would like to have this sound in a portable speaker though, the Infinity is far away from the performance of the Omni 10!

Thanks a lot for the reply ! I couldn't really get to max volume in the store I tried so I can't judge. I got interested in the Omni 20 as a possible "living room" speaker and looking to the "competition" they all lie in the same price range e.g. the Denon Heos 3. But reading and mostly watching the review/test of the RIVA Turbo X I question whether this one wouldn't be a better choice (it is portable after wall and with an excellent frequency response after volume goes beyond sub midrange...).Looking forward to your testing.RegardsRui